Yesterday the Department of Education published a new PRISMS Factsheet – Indicative Allocations and Ministerial Direction 111 – including instructions for providers to calculate their prioritisation threshold and access to a New Overseas Student Commencement (NOSC) Identification Export report.
The Factsheet provides a summary of the prioritisation process for offshore student visa processing since MD111 was issued by the Government on 19 December last year.
MD111
MD111 prioritises offshore student visa processing by categorising applications as Priority 1 – High and Priority 2 – Standard.
Priority 1 – High
- Higher education and vocational education and training providers have been given an indicative allocation of NOSCs for 2025. Offshore student visa applications with Confirmation of Enrolments (CoE) up to 80 per cent of a provider’s NOSC (the prioritisation threshold).
- Other categories that are not defined as NOSCs: schools, standalone ELICOS courses, research degree, non-award, certain scholarships, transnational education, Pacific and Timor Leste, pilot training courses.
Priority 2 – Standard
- Applies to providers who have reached their prioritisation threshold and any other student visa application.
(A reminder that MD111 only applies to offshore student visa applications, not onshore).
New Overseas Student Commencement (NOSC) Identification Export report
One of the key issues for providers since the announcement of MD111 is how they will know how they are tracking against their indicative allocation, and this new report is aimed at addressing it. The report includes:
- A list of the provider’s approved CoEs for 2025.
- Which CoEs are defined as NOSCs for 2025 and counted towards a provider’s indicative allocations for 2025.
- CoEs that are exempt from NOSC.
The Factsheet goes on to clarify that the data in the report is indicative only. This is because there is still a manual collection from providers for exemptions such as students arriving on foreign government scholarships or through transnational education programs.
Provider’s Prioritisation Threshold
The ‘prioritisation threshold’ is 80 per cent of an individual provider’s NOSC. The Factsheet provides detailed instructions for providers to estimate their individual prioritisation threshold using the NOSC Identification Export report described above.
The Factsheet is available here and includes links to indicative allocations of NOSCs tables and MD111.
You can also find my analysis of MD111 here.
